That encouraged his supporters, but he's about to enter new terrain. To date, the votes cast for and against Obama have been by Democrats. Now, with the campaigns focused on November, Republicans will register their views on why Obama spent years as part of Wright's congregation, only to dump him when he took his show on the road.
There's reason to believe some voters will respond to that. Fully 58% of voters in a May Rasmussen Reports poll said they thought Obama had dropped Wright only because the connection was damaging to him politically. An earlier Pew poll found that while Obama maintained his lead over Clinton even after the Wright issue broke, 35% of respondents had a of him because of the controversy.
Moreover, Obama's relationship with Wright may be registering with those voters who already harbor quiet doubts about electing an African American president. Take this alarming statistic from this week's West Virginia primary: In exit polls, 22% of Democratic voters said the race of a candidate mattered to them. West Virginia voters are hardly typical -- disproportionately poor and less educated, they are not exactly Obama's demographic. And yet for every voter willing to admit to racial prejudice, another may vote that way without confessing to a pollster. That raises the possibility that Wright has made Obama seem more black, less trans-racial and more polarizing.
The North Carolina ad did not settle the issue of Obama's vulnerability. Still, its real import will only be felt in November, and it sounded fair warning about what lies ahead. That's unfortunate -- whatever one thinks about Obama, it should be based on his own words, ideas and policies, not those of his bombastic former minister. But as McCain is discovering with President Bush, candidates carry not just their own water but those of their associates. Sometimes that's a heavy load.
